If Jack's in Love (27 page)

Gladstein glanced absentmindedly towards the window and turned back, awaiting my reply. We were still staring back and forth when the prissy bell announced Snead's entry.

I bolted immediately, avoiding Snead's eyes, and ran to the Pudding woods. I searched high and low. I kicked aside leaves and turned over rocks. I traversed the entire system of paths. I stared cynically at the scampering squirrels: what if one had absconded with Gladstein's ring and buried it for the winter? I sat on a flattened tree trunk and observed the people sauntering along the road, on their daily trek to the shopping center—mainly kids. Then I heard the sound of high heels.

I straightened up.

Mom!

This was the end of one of her working Saturdays (she worked every other weekend), and now she was on her way home. I watched her figure pass, obscured by the trees. Her head was bent. Her lips were moving silently, preparing briefs and justifications for her life. Seeing her made me want to pray. I squeezed my eyes and saw an image of Gaylord's corpse instead.

I dashed out of the woods and fell in behind her. By the time I made it around the curve she had already turned on Stanley. She was ahead of me by the length of a football field.

Only a few people had ventured outside that day. Many were on vacation, and those with air-conditioning had found shelter in their dens and TV rooms. There would be no gauntlet to pass through, and for Mom's sake I was thankful. Poor Mom. She was the quiet Witcher. No one knew how to place her; hers was guilt by association. And yet she had committed the one unpardonable sin. She had spawned new Witchers. For all that, the better sort of people pitied her. They knew about her vocabulary, her mastery of show tunes. Many in the neighborhood attributed my good grades to her genes, to her influence.

I was coming up on her heels and preparing to call her name, but the sudden memory of the image of Gaylord's corpse slowed me down and made me not want to go home. The very idea of seeing Pop and Stan filled me with dread. What if Pop went ahead with it, what if he robbed Gladstein anyway?

After I passed the drainage ditch I veered off course and thrashed through the weeds all the way to Matson and walked along the side of the road. I could feel the traffic at my back. Occasionally a car would honk and some kid would shout at me as it flew by. I passed the front of the Pudding house, where Mr. Pudding was cutting a swath across his sloping lawn with his riding mower. He didn't return my wave.

I wound up at the laundry near Gladstein's store, the one I'd slept in the other night. This time dirty clothes were tumbling in the washers and people were coming in to fold and sort; but no one paid attention to me.

When it was dark I crossed over to the shopping center. Gladstein's Continental and Snead's truck had vanished from the lot. I peeked in the window of the jewelry store—still as a movie set. I trotted around and passed the sewing store. In the alley I took a position behind Gladstein's shop, on the grassy hill behind it. I rested my back against the chain-link fence. Soon a white lady came along, picking up bottles and throwing them in a bag. Then a black man passed through the alley singing “Cool Jerk” by the Capitols.

I sat until I grew hungry and then I ran to the vending machine in front of the gas station at Karen and Matson and bought a bag of peanuts and a Coke and brought 'em on back. I must have hung around until eleven—I stayed a long time, I know that. Eventually I could barely hold my eyes open and I was bored out of my mind. So I went on home. Mom and Pop were on the couch in the living room, watching TV.

Seeing Pop with his legs stretched across Mom's lap made my vigil seem quixotic, unwise. He was a poor sap uselessly quagmired in the sludge of domesticity, that's all. I almost felt a pang of sorrow for him. And then he gave me a slow-burning slant of the eyes.

“Where on earth have you been?” Mom said.

“Out.”

“Well, no lie! Where did you go?”

“I needed to go somewhere and think.”

“You were with Myra Joyner, weren't you?”

“Forget Myra Joyner.”

Pop swung his legs away from Mom's lap and followed me down to the bedroom. I was worried he was coming to hit me, but I stayed cool. I switched on the overhead light and he closed the door behind us.

“You see I'm here.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I'm here, I ain't breaking into jewelry stores.”

“Fine,” I said.

“So your little fantasy didn't mean a thing. Your friend is safe, you see that.”

“Yes sir.”

“All right then. Just keep your mouth shut about what you think you know about me.” He gave me one last evil glare and stepped out of the room.

I was on the bed, gazing at the shut door—even the door seemed disgusted with me.

My brother was gone and the dread night had passed. I was dead tired, and I wanted to be light-years away in sleep by the time Stan got home.

IN THE MORNING I found him at the table slurping cereal from his bowl. A news report came on the radio about the search for Gaylord and Stan reached across the table and turned the radio off. He belched sonorously and Mom said, “Stop it, you pig.”

Pop delivered a jab to my shoulder. “What's the word, sport.”

“Nothing.”

Stan slid back his chair.

“Where are you off to?” Mom said.

“The pool. You coming?” he asked me. I'd have happily taken a dip on this hot and humid day, but not with him. I told him no.

He headed out the back screen door, slamming it.

“Let's take a ride,” Pop said.

“Where to?”

“To the park. I'll grab my sketchbook, I wanna do some drawings by the lake.”

I shook my head. I didn't want to be seen with him in public. I thought he had quit drawing, anyway.

“Come on, don't be a stick-in-the-mud.”

“I'm not feeling that well.”

Pop kicked back his chair and left the room, irritated. Mom flicked her eyes towards the door, indicating some thought she was having.

A little solitude, that's all I needed. And yet the less I wanted to be around Pop and Stan the more they wanted to be around me.

In the afternoon Stan returned with Anya and asked if I wanted to go to the quarry. He meant the old granite quarry on an island in the river that could be reached via a footbridge. The quarry had flooded years ago and now locals hung out there on hot days, somersaulting in.

Anya was laughing against Stan's shoulder, making faces. Every time she looked at me she burst out laughing all over. Mom was keeping an eagle eye on her.

I nudged my toe against the rug.

Stan left the room.

“What's so funny?” Mom said.

“Nothing.” Anya bit her lip.

Stan reappeared holding an orange juice carton.

“I hope you aren't drinking out of that,” Mom said.

He swigged from the carton deliberately. “You coming to the quarry or not?”

“Mom told you not to do that.”

He yanked Anya away with him. We heard the GTO fire up and rumble off and then Mom padded down the hall in her slippers. I sat on the sofa, staring through the window panel with the missing screen. Pop stepped in; he had been in the yard. He snapped his fingers as he passed through the room. He went to the kitchen, came back.

“Come on, let's take a ride.”

“Where to?”

“It's Sunday, let's take a ride.”

“Why, so you can give me a lecture?”

“What's wrong with you?”

I followed him outside. The Ford was glaring and broiling in the yard. We always kept a towel across the front seat to keep it from scorching us when we got in.

“I don't wanna go riding, it's too hot.”

“Come on, we never do anything anymore.”

I was scared of him and my brother and I wanted them to leave me alone. I was going to be a lone wolf from now on.

“I don't wanna go, Pop. Just let me not go.”

“How'd you get to be such a pain in the ass, will you tell me that?”

I went inside and grabbed a Mark Twain book from my room and took it to the brackish creek and sat against a tree, reading. A yellow smell, sulfur or something, was emanating from the creek. The song of the insects swelled and receded. Chiggers were biting. I kept scratching red marks on my legs. An hour passed, and then I heard someone thrashing through the brush.

I looked up, and here came Stan with Anya.

“I thought you were going to the quarry,” I said.

“Changed our minds.”

Stan rolled a joint with quick, kneading fingers.

Anya fell next to me, out of breath. “What are you reading?”

I showed her the cover,
Pudd 'nhead Wilson.

“What's that about?”

“Fingerprinting.”

“That's all?”

“It's about an amateur detective who takes people's fingerprints for fun and later he solves a murder because he has the prints of the guy that did it.”

“What are you looking at me for?” Stan said.

“I'm not.”

The insects sounded like they were laughing. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed around our ears.

Stan lit the joint and passed it to Anya. It smelled foul, sweet, sinister. I didn't like being around while they were smoking grass. I stood up and dusted the seat of my pants.

“Where you going? Come on, take a hit.”

“No, I'm leaving.”

Anya ballooned her cheeks, spat smoke, snatched my ankle. “Come on Jack, don't go.”

“I don't like being around that stuff.”

“He's such a good boy,” Stan sneered.

“So? It's sweet.”

“Witchers ain't sweet.”

Anya tugged at my ankle. “Come on, sit down.”

I fell to a sitting position.

“Tell us more about your book.”

“It's by Mark Twain. It's a detective story.”

“Why are you interested in detective stories?” Stan said.

“I've always liked Mark Twain.”

“Kid should be a librarian, at night he reads books under the covers with a flashlight.”

“Wow, that's what they call being good in bed.” Anya giggled.

“Who gets murdered in the book?” Stan said.

“The judge, but they blame it on these Italian twins who are passing through town. It was really a white guy who did the murder, except he's not white, he's black. He got switched in the cradle by his mom who's a slave and she put the judge's son in place of her own child and then he grows up thinking he's black. I've read it before,” I explained to Anya, who was listening bewilderedly. “Back then even if you were one thirty-second part black they could sell you into slavery. Sometimes you couldn't tell the whites and slaves apart. There were people as white as you and me that got sold into slavery, that happened all the time.”

I figured this would astonish them, but they just burst out laughing.

“Jack doesn't need drugs,” Stan said.

“Come on, Jack, get high with us, this grass is so good.”

“Tell the truth,” Stan said. “Are you reading that book because of Gaylord?”

“What would Gaylord have to do with it?”

“Well that's kind of a murder mystery, ain't it—I mean, what happened to him?”

“I don't know. You tell me.” This came out far more sardonic than I intended. Stan and Anya picked up on it and a weird, stoned silence fell.

The singing of the insects faded away.

“Jack thinks I killed Gaylord.”

I shook my head. I didn't want him thinking things like that.

“Tell Anya,” he said, “tell her what you think.”

“I don't like talking to you when you're high on grass,” I said.

“You're such a pussy, you don't even know what being high is like.”

“Hey, be good, you two. The vibrations are getting weird.”

“Why don't you tell her how I killed Gaylord,” Stan said. “Play the detective, go on, pretend you're whatever his name is. Pudd'nhead.”

I got up to leave and he grabbed my arm. “Where do you think you're going?”

“Let me go,” I told him.

“I'll let you go, but you have to stay, you can't leave.” His face was so close I could smell his breath. He had head-butted me a couple times, and I think he was about to do it now. Once he let go I had to struggle against an impulse to dash through the brambles.

I sat on the ground.

“Don't fight, you two,” Anya said. “Peace, remember? It's about peace.”

“Shut up Anya, butt out of it.”

She seemed shocked. She drew herself up and her mouth fell open and stayed there. This is the typical facial arrangement of those who are wasted (I was beginning to know these things), but something like understanding was struggling into her vacancy. She gazed at a fixed spot before her eyes. I don't know, maybe no one had told her to shut up before. She looked scared and hurt, and for a second I thought she was going to cry.

Stan, meanwhile, kept nodding behind his sunglasses. There was no getting to his eyes.

All three of us were very quiet. And then Anya rose. She placed her palms flat out in front of her as though calling a halt to some proceeding.

“I'm going home,” she said.

“Why?”

“I need to go meditate.”

“Like Yogi Bear?”

“Don't laugh at me, Stan, I'm really upset.”

“What for?”

“I don't like the vibration here. You guys are acting weird.”